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  • From: "Steve Wright" <swright AT townofchapelhill.org>
  • To: <chpac-staff AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [Chpac-staff] CHPAC In News : 9-26-07
  • Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2007 11:27:00 -0400

Dear CHPAC,

Linked and reproduced below are recent letters to the editor regarding
the TOC artwork.

Best,

Steve

Chapel Hill News Opinion/Letters
- Town's public art makes a splash with readers
Your Letters
http://www.chapelhillnews.com/opinion/story/9863.html

Public art is about community

I was disappointed with what passed for journalism in your coverage of
the two public artworks at the new Chapel Hill Town Operations Center
("Public art puzzles town employees," Sept. 11). Not only did the
reporter get the facts wrong, the story assumed that works of public art
must be pleasing, easy to understand and without financial cost.

Commissioning public art is the most democratic process possible because
residents, town staff and design professionals all engage in the
development of the art. At the Town Operations Center, every step --
from approval of the project to its opening celebration -- was notably
transparent and participatory.

Public art at this site is an ideal recognition of the significance of
Chapel Hill Transit and Public Works to our community: These public
artworks link the departments to our neighborhoods, teach us about each
other, bring art into daily life and are public statements about our
commitment to honoring the labor that cares for and sustains Chapel
Hill. These two works in particular are thoughtfully sited adjacent to
their administrative buildings with public access 24/7 along a future
walking trail. As a resident, voter and taxpayer in Chapel Hill, I am
delighted that the Town Council, the State of North Carolina, and the
federal government together contributed to the creation of public art in
our community, which benefits all of us and sustains an important
dimension of our quality of life. Let's remember that art expands what
is known to us while entertainment affirms what we already know.

-- Janet Kagan, Chapel Hill


The beauty of art comes with a price

There are a couple of ways of looking at public art and specifically the
pieces at the new Town Operations Center that seem to touch folks'
pockets and inflates their notions of what they could do with their
piece of the pie. Is that what we want?
But is this public art a solution for improving Chapel Hill, enhancing
the landscape, spreading smiles for people who live, look and work here?
You bet it is!

Chapel Hill has its share of ugly buildings and unimaginative landscape.
Each public art piece celebrates the human expression, creativity and
imagination. This kind of beauty, which we all deserve, has a price, but
it is a small price for visual transformation.

How many of you raised your voices in protest about the money spent on
UNC campus to construct the monument to the "Unsung Heroes"? Should that
money have been distributed to all the "workers" on the campus or the
descendants of stonemasons who built UNC?

True, I am on the Chapel Hill Public Art Commission, but even truer I am
a tax-paying, law-abiding adult who knows we do not live by bread alone.


-- Louise Davis Stone, Chapel Hill


That's tax dollars, not 'found money'

Dick Robinson, chair of the Chapel Hill Public Arts Commission, points
out that almost 40 percent of the $420,000 cost of the art projects for
the new Town Operations Center did not come from the Chapel Hill budget
("Concerns about art project are justified," Sept. 23). Rather it came
in the form of grants from federal and state transportation agencies. He
seems to feel the expenditure will be more acceptable to critics if this
fact is realized.

I do not wish to debate the appearance or appropriateness of this
project. I do, however, object to the common notion that grants such as
these are somehow "found money." Chapel Hill, a relatively wealthy town,
accepted money taken involuntarily from non-residents for this project.
I'm sure our federal representative and state representative and senator
are accepting congratulations for this heist. I wish they would think of
our roads and deteriorating bridges first.

-- John H. Bauman, Chapel Hill






  • [Chpac-staff] CHPAC In News : 9-26-07, Steve Wright, 09/26/2007

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